Tamsui Iron Eggs 淡水铁蛋
Tamsui Iron Eggs is featured among the local specialties of Taiwan.
Tamsui Iron Eggs (淡水铁蛋) are small, black, chewy eggs from Tamsui District (淡水区) in New Taipei (新北), Taiwan, made by braising and air-drying ordinary braised eggs over and over until they shrink and harden. The Taiwan Tourism Administration lists iron eggs with fish balls, fish crisps, a-gei (阿给) and sour plum drink among Tamsui's best-known snacks.
How it is made
Chinese Wikipedia describes a slow process: the eggs are braised every day for about three hours in a liquid of soy sauce and five-spice seasoning, then dried in front of electric fans, and the cycle is repeated daily for a week before they are finished. Each round makes the eggs smaller, darker and firmer.
Where it comes from
One origin story, told by EBC News and Chinese Wikipedia, starts at a small noodle stall beside the Tamsui River run by Huang Zhang Nian (黄张哖), known as A-Nian Po (阿哖婆). Fishermen jokingly called the stall the Haika Grand Hotel (海脚大饭店), from a Taiwanese word for people who make their living at sea. Braised eggs left unsold were dried by the strong wind off the wharf and went back into the pot again and again, and customers liked the smaller, blacker, chewier result. According to EBC News, fishermen asking "A-po, iron eggs" gave rise to the name A-po iron eggs (阿婆铁蛋).
A 1983 article in the Min Sheng Bao (民生报) newspaper made the eggs famous, and Japanese media came to report on them. Other shops soon copied the recipe and registered "A-po iron eggs" as a trademark first, so A-Nian Po's family sold theirs under a different name; the original shop later declined and no longer sells iron eggs. Chinese Wikipedia also gives a rival account, in which Yang Bi-yun (杨碧云), who ran a breakfast shop, over-braised eggs by accident in 1980 and named them iron eggs.
Sources & reading
Written from the linked sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer on 2026-09-25. Recipes and servings vary between kitchens.